Titans Legacies
by LigerEye
Summary: A crimson shape-shifter, a raven-haired Princess of Tamaran, a sluggish speedster, a geokinetically-empowered Markovian, a Prince of Prestidigitation, and the heir to the mantle of the Dark Knight himself have been assigned to protect Jump City. Can they prove themselves as worthy to their forebears' legacies without dying (or killing each other) in the process?
1. Chapter 1

**Titans Legacies**

**Chapter I**

**The Fly on the Wall  
**

**Disclaimer:** The _Teen Titans_ franchise, together with the majority of the characters presented in this story are the intellectual property of DC Comics. I make absolutely no claims of ownership to anything herein.

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"God damn it Red, pay attention!" barked a familiar white-haired woman, now in her thirties. In her teens, Ravager would have never thought she'd see the day when she would choose to come out of the field, but she fit the mentality of a drill instructor better than anyone else who remained in the Titans organization, and she had developed a special desire to see that the new generation of Titans would be properly trained. "How many times do I have to say it? You slip up in here..."

"...you'll die out there!" Red finished Ravager's statement in a smart-alecky tone. Of all the recruits she was presently training, this one had the greatest ability to elicit emotional reactions. "I get it, mom. You're just being harder on me because I'm your daughter," the girl noted while continuing to just barely dodge shots from the various laser turrets and projectile launchers that guarded the path through the obstacle course. Although Red had yet to be hit by anything—indeed, it had been several months since she had actually been hit—some of these were coming in way too close for her mother's comfort.

High above the obstacle course, the girl's father watched through a window in his office. When Raven accepted an invitation to join the Justice League fifteen years earlier, the man was left as the only founder remaining within the ranks of the Titans organization. Two years later, the Titans organization was restructured and a central command—Titans HQ—was erected over all of the teams; he was elected president of the overall Titans organization, a position which he simultaneously loved and loathed.

Beast Man—a codename Gar Logan had adopted in his mid-twenties—smiled as his emerald eyes took in the sight below: a white-furred, red-skinned kangaroo jumping over the final hurdle in the course, morphing immediately into a cheetah as she cleared the obstacle and running a mad dash to the finish line. Beast Man did not share his wife's misgivings about their daughter's capabilities. Indeed, the only thing that really troubled him about the girl was her tendency—one of the ones inherited from both parents—to be a cocky smartass. As he noticed the look on Ravager's face as their daughter was approaching her, he decided it might be a good idea to head down there.

"One," said Ravager through clenched teeth. Red knew she was in trouble the moment she noticed her mother's wide stance and closed fists. "You're damn right I'm harder on you because you're my daughter!" Rose growled, slaming her fist into the top of a near-by table. "I've been a Titan for over two decades, and I've seen the price of failure far more times than I would ever care to list. I've watched friends, loved ones die because they made a single mistake. A single fucking mistake," she punctuated the point with more pounding, "that's all it fucking takes! You go to the lobby of this building and look at those statues standing around; every god damn one of them was someone I knew! And, god damn it, I do not ever want to see a statue of you there!" the elder woman's lips trembled slightly.

"Geez, mom," Red responded, "I get it."

"No," her mother responded, her voice wavering slightly, "you don't get it. You're not going to get it until you see the life fading from one of your teammates, or—and you have no idea how much this thought keeps me up at night—you're the one dying."

Red felt the weight of the guilt from the emotional responses she'd triggered in her mother pulling her down. "Sorry."

The elder woman's features returned to a somewhat normal state. "I just want you to be conscious of everything you do. You need to be serious and thoughtful about every risk, and you need to use everything you've got to see that you don't end up being the one who loses." Ravager gave a short chuckle, "you signed up for one hell of a screwed up job, Lil. When we lose, it can mean anything from a shitload of pain, to the morgue. We're not allowed to kill unless it's absolutely necessary, but we sure as hell can be killed."

"What else did you want to tell me?" Red reluctantly asked after a pause.

"What?"

"Well, you preceded your statement with 'one,' showing that it was only the first of two or more points that you wanted to make."

"Oh, yeah," Ravager slapped her daughter in the back of the head. "The next time you take a smartass tone with me or your father when we're trying to teach you something, I'm going to ground you until you hit menopause. And don't think that just because you're his little princess..."

"Woah, woah, hold the phone," stated Beast Man as he walked up to his wife and daughter, "I'm not in trouble here, am I? I haven't spoiled her all day, I swear," he said, holding up his hands defensively.

"Except for that bowl of ice cream you let me eat for breakfast," Red lied.

"Traitor!" her father shouted, sarcastically, as Red decided to use the opportunity to slip out of the room.

"Ice cream for breakfast?" Ravager cocked her eyebrow. "I've been trying to keep her in tip-top physical condition, while you've been replacing the most important meal of her day with empty calories?"

"No! I swear, I have not been feeding our daughter ice cream in lieu of breakfast!," Gar shrunk back a bit, eyes widening. "She made that up to get you to focus your attention on me instead of her!"

Ravager cracked a seductive smile. "I know," she said, kissing her husband, "which, seeing as hers was the last training session of the day, means that you have my full and undivided attention. Care to escort me to our suite, so we can have a little fun of our own while our daughter thinks she's turned us against each other?" One thing about Gar's and Rose's relationship: People always steered clear of them when they thought she was mad at him.

"Sure," he tilted his head back while moving his arm around her back at about waist level, finger tips grazing the northern latitudes of her buttocks, "if you still want to after I talk to you about something."

"Are you sure you don't want to save it for pillow talk?" she pulled him as close as she physically could before giving his ear lobe a gentle nibble.

"Oh, babe, you have no idea how tempted I am," he said before breaking their embrace. "But this is too important for me to risk forgetting about it, even if I'm pretty sure you're _not_ going to be in the mood afterward."

"I'll be the judge of whether or not whatever you need to tell me will kill the mood," she replied. "I kinda wish you could save it for later, but if it's so important..."

"I wish I could too," he brought his hand up to rub the back of his neck as he let out a nervous chuckle. "I got a personnel request from Robin. The Titans West are down to just him and Jai, and given that Jai is... well... Jai, they really need new a few team members out there..."

"It must really be a problem if Damian of all people is requesting help..."

"But, there's more," he continued. "Damian is fed up with the turnover... he wants them all to be legacies." The new generation of Titans had become notorious for high turnover rates, as most new members quit within a few weeks on the job. That is, except for the so-called "legacies"—the children of Titans, Justice Leaguers and various other established heroes. The legacies had grown up in the superhero life and were accustomed to it already. Additionally, most of them had a desire to prove themselves as being worthy of their parents' legacies. "He wants four new members, at least two fliers and one arcane specialist. But he wants all four to be legacies."

"Well, Zatara is definitely ready, so we can send him as West's new arcane specialist. I'm pretty sure Nightstar is ready, so that'll give him one of his fliers. Stonehenge is definitely ready. And I know what you're thinking..."

"Rose..."

"_**No**_," she said with a heavy emphasis. "Lil is _not_ ready."

Garfield pulled his wife into an embrace. "I know how you feel, Rose. I really do—it's disturbing to send our child out into this life. But she's more ready than I was when I became a Titan, and I had years of Doom Patrol experience before that. She's almost eighteen; I've been a Titan since I was thirteen, so have you."

"She still gets distracted too easily, she's too cocky..." she started listing off reasons she felt this was a bad idea.

"Yeah, she's my daughter," Gar cracked. "But you know I wouldn't even suggest this if I wasn't absolutely convinced she was ready. For an animorph like her or me... we've got so many competing instincts that, under safe circumstances, the clutter in the ole noggin is too much, especially in the teen years. But, all of those species have one prime imperative: _Survival_. The clutter clears when the shit hits the fan. As for her cockiness," he paused for a moment before a smirk formed on his face, "I'm sure Damian'll bring her down a notch pretty quick. We both know he's his father's son as much as Lil is our daughter. Besides, Mar'i will have her back and I'm pretty sure that Damian ain't gonna let anything happen to her either—we haven't had a single hospitalization from the Jump City team since he took over, all thanks to his desire to prove to Papa Bats that he's worthy of the cowl. It's not like we'll be sending her out to fight crime all on her lonesome; she'll have a team to watch her back."

"You put way too much faith in these kids, Gar," Ravager spoke before letting out a sigh. "You always have."

"Someone has to have hope, bright eyes," Gar looked his wife directly in the eyes and gave her a soft smile. "These Titans would never realize their full potential without it."

"I'll think about it," she said as she turned toward the door and began to walk away, suddenly turning back to him to add "but, if anything happens to her—the no-kill rule be damned—I will hunt down everyone who is responsible. I will strangle them to death with my bare hands. I will cut their god damn heads off, and then I will chop up their bodies into tiny little pieces and send them to all the villains of the world."

"I wouldn't expect any less of you," Beast Man replied as his wife left the room, "I'd do the same, and worse." But, even if he was the face of hope to everyone else, he couldn't help but wonder to himself: Was he was doing the right thing?

"Lillian Marie Logan," Gar said in a mock-angry tone, "how many times have I told you it's impolite to spy on your parents? Or, just plain wrong?" Just then a red fly flew from the wall and transformed back into the teenage girl.

"How did you know I was there?"

Gar chuckled. "You do know that there's not a single extant animal form I haven't taken, right? Hell, I've even taken some non-animal forms... like this one time, I was an amoeba, and there was this one time that Mumbo Jumbo turned me into a lamp..."

"Um, point dad?"

"Since I've actually been a _Musca domestica_ a few million times over the years, I can sense them a lot easier than you'd think. And I can especially sense when the fly on the wall is my own daughter. I've known you were there since you flew back into the room."

"Oh," she responded in a dull tone. Red had inherited several traits from each of her parents: The pointed ears, claws, metamorphic powers, etc. came from her father, although she was far less inclined to hide her claws than was Gar. Among the things she'd inherited from her mother were naturally white hair and the trait that had more of an emotional effect on Gar than anything else: Her bright blue eyes. It was quite hilarious in its irony, but with her blue eyes, the youngest Logan had been so much more easily able to use her father's trademark "The Face" against him than he had ever been able to use it against others—although that says a lot.

But now it wasn't "The Face" that was causing an emotional reaction from the green man. No, it was the absence of the very brightness in her eyes which made that expression so potent which was grabbing his attention now. As the girl sat down, her eyes visibly darkened, dulling the bright hue which normally shone from them and hiding it behind a well of unshed tears. It always broke his heart to see her sad.

"Hey," he said to his daughter as he sat next to her, placing his hands on her shoulders, "it'll be okay."

"W-what am I gonna do, dad?" she asked as the tears began to fall. "Mom'll never let me go. It was bad enough when Irey and Lian went to Titans East, but I don't know if I'll be able to handle if Mar'i gets sent to Titans West without me." Gar was all too aware that she would feel this. Red and Nightstar had the distinction of being the only biological children of founding members of the Jump City team. The two were extremely close in age—Mar'i was only older than Lil by two months—and had been very close throughout childhood and inseparable ever since they entered the Titans Academy together.

"Don't worry sweetie," he said trying to calm her down, "I promise I'll do everything I can to convince your mom to sign off on sending you to Jump City with Mar'i."

"Thanks daddy," she said before willing herself to stop crying. Drying her tears, she got up.

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**Author's Notes  
**To any readers of my other unfinished stories: Yeah, I'm alive! Sorry for how long it's been since I've posted any content, but my creative energies with the AotB series kinda ran out. Since I haven't really been able to surmount the writer's block for those stories, I've decided to go ahead and work with other ideas I had, including this one.**  
**

Now, obviously this is a Titans' children story. Pretty much all of the characters I have in mind at this point actually exist in some canon, somewhere in the DCU. This chapter primarily revolved around Red, who appeared briefly in the New 52 era _Teen Titans Annual #2_. I've never been much of a fan of the New 52 universe, but the Beast Boy (err, Beast Man, rather) and Ravager pairing seemed like a breath of fresh air, and, to my knowledge Red has the distinction of being the only child ever attributed to either Garfield Logan or Rose Wilson in ANY DC canon. Red was not given a name other than her codename, so I improvised and created one for her—I'm pretty sure most of you are not in need of any explanation of where I got the name "Lillian Marie Logan," however.

I will, however, note that, even though at least two of the main characters for this story are pulled from the aforementioned annual, the universe for this story will be mostly based on the _Teen Titans_ animated universe and the pre-New 52 New Earth universe.

The first few chapters are mostly going to be introducing the main characters and the parameters of the storyline. I don't think it would be too much of a spoiler to acknowledge who each of these characters is, however, as, again, they all exist in DC canon somewhere.

Robin, in this case, is Damian Wayne, son of the Bat, sole biological child (excluding clones) of Bruce Wayne and Talia al Ghul. He has existed in multiple canon continuities, in New Earth, Prime Earth, as well as multiple possible futures.

Nightstar, naturally, is Mar'i Grayson, daughter of Dick Grayson and Koriand'r of Tamaran. She primarily existed in the _Kingdom Come_ Earth-22 continuity.

Stonehenge is a character from the same annual I pulled Red out of. His real name is revealed in-story as being Oliver. His powers appear to be geokinetic, which suggests a royal Markovian origin; as such I do not think it's much of a stretch to assume him to be Tara Markov's bastard son, and as such call him Oliver Markov.

Jai West is Wally West's son and Iris West II's twin brother from the New Earth continuity.

Zatara is the son of Zatanna Zatara and John Constantine from the Earth-22 continuity. While I've never seen a proper name given for him, I decided to go with the most obvious one I could find (John Zatara Constantine—hence naming him after Zatanna's father).


	2. Chapter 2

**Disclaimer:** I own nothing. I claim to own nothing.

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**Titans Legacies**

**Chapter II**

**Heart to Heart (to Heart)**

Was it a knock that awakened her? Mar'i Grayson was still quite fuzzy on that question as she stirred, prematurely, but mercifully, removed from her slumber. Her half-hour nap had been completely accidental, and it certainly would not have happened if she'd had a choice in the matter. Mar'i knew very well that sleep was necessary for good health, but she loathed to be unconscious a minute more than what was necessary for that particular end. For, with every lapse in consciousness, rapid eye movement is possible; and from that comes the dreams that had plagued her since she was a little girl.

"_Will it happen to you?"_ A chill ran down her spine as she willed herself not to cry in reaction to the memories the dream had dug up. It was her own voice, or rather a past version of her voice, which carried the words. She couldn't have been more than six years old at the time she asked the question. Shaking her head, she willed herself to suppress the thoughts. She loathed unconsciousness because the dreams reopened old wounds and made her feel once again a loss which could never be undone.

A knock sounded at the door; yes, it must have been a knock that had awakened her. "Star," the familiar voice of her best friend sounded from the other side of the door, "are you in there?" Tears began to pool in Mar'i's eyes as she heard that familiar name. Red had taken to addressing Mar'i as 'Star' years ago, when she learned that the Tamaranian princess absolutely adored the association with her mother. But at this particular moment, the familiar appellation cut her like a knife.

"Yeah," the raven-haired girl responded as she wiped away the tears and suppressed the emotions that were pressing for release. "I was just taking a nap."

"A nap?" the daughter of Garfield Logan queried. "Are you sure you're not an imposter implanted by a race of super-intelligent space squirrels, who kidnapped the real Mar'i to use her as a hostage to coerce Tamaran into giving them an endless supply of nuts?"

'_Where does she get these ideas?'_ Nightstar thought, perplexed by her best friend's tendency to come up with highly improbable explanations. _'Could be genetic'_, she thought as she remembered some stories her own father had told her about Garfield Logan. Wiping away her tears, she responded, "no, I just kinda dosed off when I was reading. It happens sometimes; you would know these things if you actually gave reading a chance!"

"**I DO SO READ!**" Red shouted. "It's just that the books I like tend to be a little spicier than what you're used to."

"Then how come I've never seen you reading one of them?"

"I don't want to spoil your innocence," the changeling said, sticking her tongue out at the door. "Anyhow, could you open the door? I forgot my keycard again!" It was so typically Logan; Mar'i suspected that Lil would probably forget her head if it wasn't attached to her body. She chuckled a bit at the thought, as she got out of her bed and to comply with the request.

"You are soooo you're father's daughter," Mar'i said as she opened the door. Then her eyebrow raised slightly as the door slid shut behind Red. "Why didn't you just shift into an ant and crawl under the door?" It was a good question—the changeling had been as much a snoop as her father was when he was a teenager, and had performed that particular maneuver more times than she could ever hope to recall.

"Didn't feel like it," Lil deadpanned. "All the shifts I did while training kinda tired me out," she said while sitting on her own bed, "and do you have any idea how much it hurts to shift when I run out of stamina? My dad makes it look easy, but when I start running out of energy, the transformations start to take longer, and the pain increases by the same margin." She sighed as her roommate took a seat on the bed across from her. As she inhaled to replace the exhaled air, the young changeling noticed something. "Have you been crying?"

Nightstar paused, not knowing how she wanted to answer the question. However, she should have known better than that, as her crimson friend possessed an extraordinary fluency in body language, and the half-Tamaranian's body language was screaming that she was in the process of considering a lie.

"Remember who I am, Mar'i," Lil said to her obviously troubled friend, "I can smell your tears, I can read every tell you don't even realize you have when you're about to lie to me, and I can tell when something's wrong." The changeling crossed the space between the two beds in their shared living quarters, seating herself close to her friend and wrapping an arm around her shoulder. "Hon, we've been best friends since before either of us can remember," she pointed out, "you can always come to me when something's bothering you." She gave her friend's shoulder a squeeze. "Unless I'm what's bothering you," she teased, but then her eyes darkened and her gaze turned to the floor. "But if it was me, you wouldn't have to put up with me for much longer."

"Oh, shut up!" the princess was not amused with the changeling's insinuation that she'd ever been a cause of what was bothering her. "I'll have you know that I could never have wished for a better friend than you. I've just been having some bad dreams."

"You've been having bad dreams for at least as long as we've been sharing a room," Red pointed out.

"How do you know these things!" the daughter of the world's third greatest detective was continually surprised by her friend's occasional displays of what often appeared to be omniscience.

"That's an easy one," the crimson changeling noted. "For one thing, I have inherited from my father the distinction of having the genetic code of the entire Animal Kingdom locked in my body, and, by consequence, my normal senses are often off the chart in comparison to... well, just about anyone I guess. And the sixth sense I have inherited from that genetic cocktail also gives me a sixth sense about emotions that is only slightly weaker than if I had been an empath; have you ever heard that animals can 'smell' fear?"

"Yeah, but I always though that was bull."

"Nope, it's pretty much true, except that 'sense' would be a better word to use than 'smell.' And I'm actually a lot better than my dad when it comes to this sixth sense too; my parents actually had to have Auntie Rae teach me how to block out others' emotions when I was little, because reading everyone's emotions started using up so much of my brainpower that I couldn't think. Plus, on top of all this, I also inherited my mom's limited precognition, which, while it doesn't explain how I know you've been having nightmares, it does explain some of the more difficult-to-explain things about my insights; although I'm _much_ weaker at precognition than my mom is."

"Wow."

"Psht," Red interjected, "it's nothing, really. I'm still a lot less powerful than you are, between your Tamaranian genes and the martial arts training your dad gave you."

"I don't know about that," the princess replied. "I know I'm strong as hell, but I remember when I was little, my dad would occasionally have Uncle Vic and Aunt Sarah babysit me if he had to pick up and help the Batclan with something, and for whatever reason Alfred wasn't available. Vic used to tell me stories about your dad's Beast, and told me that if I wasn't a good girl, he'd tell Gar to unleash it. Normally, I'd suspect that Vic embellished some things," she noted, "but when my dad found out about the empty threats, he had a panic attack. That's enough to tell me that Vic wasn't making things up." The changeling very successfully suppressed a laugh at the thought of Nightwing having a panic attack; from all she'd seen, Dick Grayson and panic attack really didn't belong in the same sentence.

"My dad absolutely loathes that transformation, and he kinda forbade me from even attempting it."

"Why? I mean, that sounds like it would be a hell of an asset to have in a fight."

"He told me he used it a few times as a transformation of last resort, but he doesn't want me to ever even attempt it because that transformation would mean surrendering my capacity to reason. The thought of himself going berzerk in that form and hurting people he cared about scares him enough, he absolutely does not want me to _ever_ use it. In fact, he won't even let me see what it looks like."

"Damn."

"Yeah, I know," Red responded. "Anyhow, don't think this sidetrack made me forget what we were talking about. What kind of dreams have you been having that have been affecting you so strongly?"

"Well," Mar'i bit her lip, _really_ not wanting to talk about it. But she knew her friend only wanted to help, and she had bee bearing this burden for some time. Lord knows her father would never talk with her about it. "I've been dreaming about my mom... about when she was sick... about certain conversations from before she was sick..." Fresh tears began to form in Mar'i's eyes. "It's just been digging up a lot of painful memories."

At that moment, a single emotion came to dominate all of Lillian Logan's being: sympathy. She pulled her friend into a close embrace, and in nearly an instant Mar'i began to literally cry on Red's shoulder. She hated seeing her friend feel so much pain, but she also knew she was ill-equipped to really help her. No, the best she could do would be to let her friend cry on her shoulder. Kissing the raven-haired daughter of Dick Grayson and Koriand'r of Tamaran on the top of the head, and affectionately running her hand up and down her dearest friend's back, she just silently kept the embrace for a long moment. "I wish I knew your mom better," Red broke the silence, "I mean, you know, I did have the honor of meeting her before... But, I was really young and didn't get the chance to really truly know her. Maybe it would help you work through your feelings if you talked to your dad about it."

Holding onto Red like she'd been in a shipwreck and the changeling was the only floating object nearby, Mar'i reined in her tears to give herself an opportunity to respond. "It'd never happen," she lamented, without removing her face from her friend's shoulder. "My dad has _never_ talked to me about my mom, or what happened." Sniffling, she let go of her friend and proceeded to lie back on the bed. "Babs told me once that she had tried, not long after she and my dad had gotten married, to get him to open up about it, and to talk with me about it. She had the same idea I suppose you're having, that if we talked through our feelings and actually celebrated the better things about her life—who she was—that it would help both of us. But my dad absolutely refused." Turning on her side to face her friend, she continued. "Babs said that she thinks it's that it devastated him so profoundly, and then there's Bruce's influence... Bruce never talks about what he's feeling, so I guess my dad just kinda figured that talking about things like that does more harm than good." She paused to give a sad chuckle. "My dad actually almost left Babs at one point, because she was pushing him too hard to open up with me."

Red repositioned herself to lie on her side alongside her friend, facing her. "I wish I could help you."

"What are you doing right now?" Mar'i asked, with a sad smile. "Even just letting things like this out helps a little. Even though I think you're right, I'm probably going to have to talk to someone who knew my mom better, you shouldn't underestimate how much it helps to have you here to listen to me, and to prod things out of me when I need to open up." She embraced her friend once more. "You're more help than you know. I don't know what I would ever do without you."

With that, Red's eyes very noticeably darkened and her gaze focused squarely on the mattress beneath her—or, at least, in its general direction. Mar'i may not have been able to 'smell' emotions, but she didn't need to.

"Red," she addressed her friend while taking her hand between her own, "what did you mean when you said that I wouldn't have to deal with you much longer?"

Now it was Red's turn to start forming tears. It was even worse now; before she had been worried about living without her greatest friend, but now she had been reminded that their friendship was a two-way street and Mar'i needed her as much as she needed Mar'i, if not more so. It took little over a second for her to devolve to bawling her eyes out.

"You..." Mar'i swallowed, "you're not going to hur..."

"No!," Red interrupted. "It's nothing like that. It's just..." She paused to bring her crying under control. "It's just that there's a really good chance that we're gonna be separated soon. Today, my dad got a request from Robin, saying that he needed new members for Titans West. My parents agreed on you, Stonehenge and Zatara, but then he tried to convince my mom to let me go, but she absolutely put her foot down, refusing. She's scared I'll get myself killed, so she won't let me be a real Titan. She won't let me go to Jump City with you."

"Well," Mar'i began, "I could just refuse to go to Jump City if they won't let you go."

"No!" Red exclaimed. "I don't want you to throw away your shot at being a Titan because my mom won't let me go. She'll probably never let me go out into the field, and then if you stay with me, you'll never get to go out into the field."

"Well, if your dad thinks you should go, isn't that all that matters? I mean, he's actually the head of the Titans, isn't that his decision to make?"

"Technically, yes," Red acknowledged, "but that's under normal circumstances, where my parents aren't talking about sending their only child into what my mom is convinced will be the path of death. Whenever it has anything to do with things that concern my mom, and my mom's emotions run particularly high on the subject, the rule between them is that what she says goes. My dad learned that the hard way, actually: remember that time my dad disappeared for two months when we were little?"

"Uh, maybe," Mar'r responded. "Was it around the same time that Bruce and my dad needed his help with something, but they had to search for him throughout half the country?"

"Yes, that was the time. Anyhow, the reason why my dad was so hard to find was because he was having lunch outings with Slade—who actually wanted to be a grandfather to me, and was trying to convince my dad to let him visit. My mom flipped out so bad that my dad had to leave the state for his own protection! I still remember all the things she said about him that whole time; I think Rae has said nicer things about Trigon than the kindest words my mom had for my dad at that point in time. Of course, they eventually patched things up, but my dad learned to tread lightly where my mom's emotions were likely to be explosive, especially where I was part of the picture."

"Well, maybe my dad..."

"Doubt it. My mom respects your dad as a hero, but she doesn't have the highest opinion of your his parenting skills. No offense."

"None taken. I don't have the highest opinion of his parenting skills either sometimes. I mean, seriously, it's been like three months since the last time he called me." Mar'i frowned at remembering another thing she'd have rather not thought about. "I know that he loves me, but he's really, reeeeaally bad at showing it." Mar'i pondered for a moment before getting up to reach for her communicator. "I think I know who might have good advice for negotiating your mom's emotions, though."

"Who?" the changeling asked, the features of her face taking a quizzical form. Red did not have to wait long for an answer as the princess brought the screen of the communicator within her view just as the call was answered. In the screen was the face of a certain gray-skinned, purple-eyed and -haired woman.

"Hello Mar'i," a raspy monotone greeted, "Lillian. To what do I owe the pleasure?"

"Hi Auntie Rae," the two younger girls said in unison. "We've kinda got a problem, and I thought you might know how to fix it," Mar'i continued.

"What's wrong?" the demi-demoness questioned. The casual observer would have noticed no alteration in the tone of Raven's voice, nor in the features of her face. The princess and the changeling, however, were no casual observers. They'd both known the amethyst-featured sorceress since their own births, and they could read the subtleties that betrayed her concern. The older woman was not related to either of them by blood, but that did not prevent the development of a mutual feeling that she was their de facto aunt, and neither of the girls doubted that Raven cared very deeply for them.

"Well," the brunette looked to her animorphic compatriot, "Red should probably tell you."

The changeling took her friend's cue and explained at length everything she'd heard while she was spying on her parents. "And I don't know what to do. My mom will never let me be a Titan," she began to cry again, "and I can't lose Mar'i! I never see Lian or Irey anymore. I don't want that too happen with my best friend!"

'_For Azar's sake, Rose, she's almost eighteen!'_ the empath thought, though she could understand the Ravager's motives. Understanding her motives did not, however, mean agreeing with her choices. Red was only a few weeks short of the age when _normal_ teenagers could enlist in the military, and she had superpowers to protect her on top of it. "You're her only offspring," Raven noted, "so it's to be expected that your mother would be somewhat paranoid as to what might happen to you if you were to go into active duty as a Titan. I suspect that her maternal instinct is overriding her reason in evaluating your readiness. Actually, for that reason, I have always figured that it was a bad idea for her to be in charge of your training—she has absolutely no objectivity in this case. It would have probably been better if your parents had arranged for Dick to train you. I suspect even Bruce might have been willing to train you; your powers are fairly unusual, and thus probably very interesting, as far as the detective in him is concerned."

Raven paused for a moment before continuing. "But I think I know how you can convince your mother that you're ready."

The young changeling's eyes brightened as hope flooded her mind. "Really?!" she spoke at a volume approaching a scream. Beneath the surface, she was almost giddy at hearing that there might b a solution to her problem.

"You need to defeat her."

"Du hast wohl einen an der Klatsche?!" the changeling exclaimed, so caught off guard by Raven stating such a thing in such simple terms, as though it were something she could just do without much effort at all, that she felt the need to respond in a foreign language. A fact that often surprised those who didn't know the young changeling very well, she was _extremely_ multilingual. Her father taught her to speak French and Swahili. Dick Grayson brought her into the lessons he'd been giving Mar'i in Roma. Mar'i had taught her how to speak Tamaranian, a language the princess had herself picked up in the womb, thanks to the unique nature of Tamaranian biology. When she was ten, she'd asked her father about Spanish, but seeing as he could only understand, and not actually speak, that language, he referred her to Mas y Menos. After learning Spanish, picking up Portuguese in online lessons was far from difficult. Garfield Logan even convinced Leonid Kovar to take the time to teach Lil Russian, hoping that she could serve as his interpreter if he ever needed to visit Russia—or any of the former Soviet republics, really—when Kovar was unavailable. Raven had taught the daughter of her one-time lover Latin, Romanian, Sanskrit, and, most importantly in this particular exchange, German.

"No," the empath responded with the corners of mouth rising slightly. "I'm not nuts. I know you have your doubts, and I won't sugarcoat things by telling you that the odds wouldn't be against you, but I have experience with fighting against a parent I'd never thought I could beat. Trust me, _nothing_ is impossible. But, to prove to her your capacity to keep yourself safe, you'll need to defeat her in a sparring match. And it has to be a clear win. Don't 'go the distance'; don't win by decision. You need to leave her with no doubt in her mind that you've defeated her."

"I don't know," the changeling said with trepidation evident in her voice. "My mom was trained by Slade Wilson and Dick Grayson, has two decades more experience fighting than I do, is probably the most skilled swordswoman in the world and one of the most skilled martial artists, and on top of that she's got comparable strength to my _grandfather_ and, while I have them too, she's got precognitive abilities that are far better trained than mine." She sighed. "I don't think I'd have a snowball's chance in Hell of actually beating her."

"Oh, come on Lil," the Tamaranian responded before the Azarathian had the chance. "You're stronger than you think, and like Rae said, this is the way to convince your mom that you're ready. Anyway, what will you lose if she wins? If you don't fight her, she'll keep thinking you're not ready. If you fight her and lose, she'll keep thinking you're not ready. Everyone know how badass your mom is, so it's not like anyone would think any less of you for losing to her. We all know that this entire problem is based on her fear that you're going to get yourself hurt, so I'm pretty sure she's not actually going to do any damage to you..."

"And that's exactly why Lillian has a good chance of winning," Raven interrupted Mar'i with the sudden realization. "Rose will hold back, because her maternal instinct is not to harm her own daughter. Her emotions will not allow her to go beyond what she _thinks_ you can handle; and since, like Mar'i, I'm quite convinced that the whole source of this problem is that Rose underestimates you, you can use that to your advantage."

"Hmm," Red interjected while processing the information. "It does make perfect sense," she said as she sat up, eyes brightening, "I think I'm gonna go challenge her now!" Without another word she jump off the bed and ran out the door.

"Damn it, Lil!" Mar'i exclaimed, causing Raven to raise an eyebrow. Sensing her surrogate aunt's confusion, she pointed towards the desk on Red's side of the room "she forgot her keycard, _again_!"

Raven gave a ghost of a smile. "She's definitely her father's daughter."

"Was he really _that_ bad?"

"Worse," the Azarathian replied, "but Steve, Dick, Vic, Tara, Rose, some other people, and I all worked to eventually help remedy that, over time."

"Sounds like he was a handful," Mar'i noted, hoping to prod Raven into talking about the original Titans.

"He was," the sorceress noted with a sad smile, "but, in hindsight, I wouldn't have it any other way. If not for him and your mother, I would be a complete recluse with no social skills whatsoever. Dick and Vic were usually content to leave me alone unless it _really_ seemed like I needed help, but Gar, and, to a lesser degree, your mother, always prodded me to join in on activities. Gar forcing me to watch movies with the team, Kori begging me to go to the mall. Both of them seemed to want to break down my walls in their own ways, and, I suppose, they were ultimately successful. And I don't think I've ever been grateful enough to them for that."

"The way you describe Gar, it sounds a lot like Lil," Mar'i noted. Pausing for a moment, she recognized an opportunity. "What was my mom like? I mean, I remember some things from when I was little, but my dad never wants to talk about her. I thought about asking Gar about her, but from all I've heard, you were the closest to her. Other than my dad, of course."

"Your mother was the sweetest person I've ever known," Raven said with another sad smile. "I was convinced for a long time that I would never meet another person as sweet as her in my life; but you remind me of her a lot. That said, she was unique and you're unique as well. She always had trouble understanding Earth's customs, which often made her seem naive to others, even though she was probably one of the most brilliant persons I've ever known. But that sweetness of hers... I see it constantly in you."

The younger girl smiled, even as tears began to pool in her eyes. "I suppose I've taken up enough of your time already..." Raven attempted to interrupt, but Mar'i kept taking, "I mean, I know you'll say it's never a bother, but I also know how demanding the Justice League is on time. Don't worry, Raven, I know you'd never want me to feel like I'm being a burden." She paused as she willed herself to ask what she needed to ask. "Do you think you can come and spend some time with me, and we could talk about my mom in person sometime?"

"Absolutely," the elder woman said without hesitation. "I suppose I should be there to help give Lillian some moral support when she finally does fight Rose, since I gave her the idea to begin with. Perhaps I could take a leave of absence from the League and spend some more time with you, so we can talk about your mother at length."

"Cool!" the teenager exclaimed. "Like, could we have, like, a slumber party; like, you, me and Lil?"

"Uh," Raven was at a loss for words. _'Oh, Azar, what have I gotten myself into now?'_

* * *

**Author's Notes**  
Sorry that it took so long for me to add this second chapter to _Titans Legacies_. I was having some problems figuring out what I wanted to do with the story, but now I've got a clear vision. I don't want to spoil anything, but eventually (though, probably relatively early in the story) there will be a somewhat shocking reveal that will both explain who our big bad will be and violently throw a budding relationship off its rails, and said reveal will obviously have immense plot implications. I'm not giving you more than that, though: evil, aren't I?

I'm not entirely satisfied with this chapters as it is, but I figured it has been far too long since I last updated this story, so I stowed my doubts for now. Just as the first chapter served to introduce Red, this chapter served to introduce Nightstar. I also hoped to showcase the strength of the friendship between Mar'i and Lil, and the surrogate niece-aunt relationship both of them have with Raven. As of this chapter, it does seem that Red will probably be _the_ lead for this story, but we'll have to see where it goes—though I have some idea of where I want to bring the plot, I'm still writing by the seat of my pants.

Also, for the time being, I've downgraded the fic's rating from M to T. I may need to reverse this decision in the near future, but for now there's nothing that absolutely necessitates the M rating.

And, unfortunately, yes, Koriand'r of Tamaran is no longer among the living in this continuity. Her death in this continuity is very similar to how she died in the _Kingdom Come_ continuity—that is to say, she died of a circulatory illness when Mar'i was still a small child. As I've alluded, in this continuity, Kori's death devastated Dick so much that he still can't even talk about her, more than a decade later, even though he ultimately did remarry. And yes, I had him marrying Barbara Gordon as his second wife. Also, as I've alluded, Dick's refusal to talk about Kori has also made it more difficult for his daughter to sort through her own feelings, and has left her, in a way, not _knowing_ her mother.

_**Emmeline C.**_** Thornbrooke**—Sorry that I disappointed you. Though, if it's any consolation, (and I hope not to give any spoilers,) past interractions between Beast Boy and Raven will have _serious_ implications to the plot of this story, if said plot follows along the path I presently have in mind.

_**DianaLaura**_—I'm sorry I kept you waiting, and I hope you're still with us as the story continues. It is one of those pairings that doesn't often see the light of day, and, being that my own OTP is BBRae, it does feel weird for me to write this story with a BBRavager pairing sitting in the background like that. I'm not even sure where this story is going, so I can't promise that it'll be great; what I can promise is that, as long as I'm still alive, _even if it takes me two years to update_, I fully intend to see this story out to the end, wherever that might lead.

_**Knight of Eons**_—Either Red was a shapeshifter who had advanced in her skills to the point of being able to master partial transformations, or she was born with the lower body of a kangaroo; I figured it was a safe bet that it was the former, though the latter isn't exactly impossible either. As far as Blur goes, I have no idea; that issue didn't flesh out much in the way of details about the introduced characters' powers. I remember hearing somewhere that DC may have been toying with the idea of spinning a series or miniseries off from that issue, but it never happened, which is unfortunate. If they'd have done that, the introduced characters would have been given more development and we would know more about them, and it's a shame that we don't, because those characters, even for only appearing in a couple slides, were extremely interesting, IMO.

_**CheeseJellyBean**_—I hope my writing style continues to be engaging as you've noted it has been, though, as I said above, I'm not entirely satisfied with this chapter 2 as it is. Also, I think chapters 1 and 2 are both kinda short, though we'll see if that issue can be rectified as I move ahead with this fic. Gar, Rose, Raven, and even Tara will all have important places in the plot moving ahead, so, while the plot will not be centered on the relationship between Gar and Rose, and I cannot actually promise anything in this regard, there's a pretty good chance there'll be some interactions between them that'll sate that desire to a degree.


End file.
